Materials designed to be responsive to light have several advantages as it involves spatiotemporal control of the polymer in precise and robust manner. Of late, polymers which exhibit both photo- and biodegradable properties have become increasingly desirable. Polymers with such properties could be activated by the photochemical input and at a later stage undergo hydrolysis either in the aqueous biological environment or in the nature. Such polymers display numerous applications in environmental, agricultural and biomedical fields.
Coumarin groups have previously been used in synthetic organic chemistry as a tool for orthogonal deprotection. Other uses for coumarin groups include uncaging molecules such as neurotransmitters, as labile groups in solid phase peptide synthesis, for formation of functionalized channels in agarose hydrogels, and in photodegradable scaffolds for tissue engineering. However, the prior art does not include coumarin groups that are part of a polymer chain, where they are advantageously part of a polymer that may be photoresponsive and/or bioabsorbable.